Question

Why are the rear brakes locking up on my 2000 Chevy Cavilier?

I have replaced the front pads, calipers, rotors. rear shoes, drums, wheel cylinders, springs, flushed out the old fluid, bled and adjusted them made sure there were no leaks. Also I made sure that the rear shoes were installed properly. The ABS Regulater (I guess that is what it is called, Cast aluminum box next to the master cylinder with the four brake lines going into the top of it) is the only item that I can think of as the culprit. It seems to be hydraulic and doesn't have any electrical wiring. I am adding this for your info as there are no check engine lights or ABS lights illuminated on the display console.

Working with ABS is tricky. You probably damaged an ABS sensor or maybe forced fluid into the ABS unit and gunked it up when you pushed the piston calipers back. Did you squeeze off the brake hose and open the bleeder first? Common error if you didn't. So you may be in a false ABS mode at this point.

You might need to scan the ABS system and retrieve a code to get more answers.

Just for anyone else that may find themselves with this problem. I finally figured out what this problem was. The curvature of the brake shoes and drums do not match up correctly. When the brakes were applied contact was made at the toe and heel of the brake shoe only. Areas of chipping were found in these areas on the shoes. The remedy I found was to bevel these edges of the brake shoe. This is a problem with the configs that were issued to the aftermarket companies from GM and not a problem with any one Mfgr. This had been an ongoing problem for for me about 18 months. I tried The house brand of shoes from O'Reilly, Auto Zone, Advance, & Bendix. and had the same problem, so it seems that it isn't necessarily a certain mfgr problem. I could not get the good folks at GM to even listen to me about this. It would have been nice to have this info 1 1/2 years ago to alleviate some of the grief involved with a simple brake job.

more then likely its the 2 rubber hoses comming from the brake cylinders to the brake block on or near the frame . they might be 3 quarter medal tubbing 1 quarter rubber hose or the other way around . the rubber hoses collapse inside and dont let the fluid release . even though the hose looks good you cant see inside them .sometimes when you desturb them or bend them they crack , good luck